“These hands are big enough to save the world, and small enough to rock a child to sleep.” –Zelda Brown
A week ago, on the Pisces full moon, our Red Tent Initiation Program began. When I did my recording for the first week of class in the woods, I drew a Womanrunes card to get us started and I got The Circle, Rune of Beginnings. I love the sensation of setting forth, embarking on a journey, gathering the women, celebrating, sharing, learning, and growing. What a beautiful beginning! The following day, I planned a full moon gratitude + abundance + harvest ritual for my family. I keep meaning to write an article about tips for ritual with kids, because it is such a messy and chaotic experience, but that very messiness and chaos also means I don’t have as much time to write articles as I envision! Anyway, it was a beautiful and fun ceremony. We created a fall nature mandala on our veranda (back deck) using gourds, sage, rose petals, and hydrangea that we grew and sumac, dittany, and dogwood from the woods. I hope to send it out as a “ritual recipe” in our September newsletter for your family to use to celebrate the fall equinox.
I registered for Joanna Powell Colbert’s upcoming ecourse: 30 Days of Harvest ~ A Daily Sacred Pause of Welcoming Autumn. I look forward to another experience of daily practice with her.
Speaking of classes, our next session of our popular Womanrunes Immersion course begins in October. I’m looking forward to working
through this course with another group of women. We had such a great time in June and I learned so much through the process of working through the course right alongside them! One of the special things about Womanrunes is that these simple symbols become a living part of your life, day, and language of the divine. Women ink them on their skin (temporarily or permanently!), write with them, carve them onto drums or rattles. We feel them. We live them. They’re not only cards that you turn over occasionally, they are part of your womanspirit. They help you understand and listen to yourself and they become a dynamic, evolving, engaged, living process of connection and understanding. ❤
August was a busy month and I found myself feeling more emotionally erratic than I’d like—vacillating between a boundless enthusiasm and a sort of trapped, snappy despair (as I re-read past blog posts, I recognize this as a feature of having a toddler + three other kids, disrupted sleep, and an unpredictable “schedule”). We have lots of ideas for new courses, new sculptures, and new, expanded, exciting directions for our business. However, we feel perpetually short on time! I’ve been hard on myself lately about needing to focus and choose between projects and interests as well as possibly dropping one or more of my blogs. So, reading this post from Lucy Pearce of Dreaming Aloud about being a “creative polygamist,” was truly just what I needed: The Creative Polygamist, Or Why I Have No Time for a 1D World – Dreaming Aloud
I also took comfort in this lovely post about the messiness of life and why it is beautiful:
Maybe we’ve been misled when it comes to the “messier” aspects of life (and I don’t mean our junk drawers). Maybe messy isn’t a reflection of our shortcomings at all. Maybe the real source of our struggle stems from the belief that life is supposed to be tidy.
Source: Revolution from Home » Blog Archive Life Is Meant to Be Messy (You’re Not Doing It Wrong)
Speaking of junk drawers, we’ve continued to be on a declutter frenzy and everything that goes out the door, leaves a sense of lightness and freedom behind it. In our Shining Year workbook this year, we wrote that we needed to “literally get clear” and that means moving some accumulated STUFF out of our home, freeing up our minds, home, hands, and lives to create and live! And speaking of Leonie Dawson’s workbooks, we’ve been pecking away at the wealth of materials in her Academy and it is worth every penny!
I enjoyed reading two more articles about creating, the first about criticism:
“I want to spend my time making things, telling stories, giving everything I have, not sitting back and pointing out what someone else should have done. It’s lazy, and it’s cheap, and it’s cowardly…”
Source: 3 Lessons I’ve Learned About Creating, Consuming, and Criticism
And the second about art as meditation (I think this is exactly what I was writing about last week!):
If you can’t find the patience to meditate, researchers say creating art offers some of the same benefits…
Source: Why making art is the new meditation – The Washington Post
I was sad to find out that one of my favorite authors, Wayne Dyer, died last weekend. Related to the first article above, a quote from him:
“A non-doer is very often a critic- that is, someone who sits back and watches doers, and then waxes philosophically about how the doers are doing. It’s easy to be a critic, but being a doer requires effort, risk, and change.” –Wayne Dyer
I’ve always been a doer. Sometimes it is easy to be hard on myself about the DO-ing orientation. Sometimes I see the courage within it.
In case you missed it:
New Program Announcement: Divination Practicum for Women.
Brigid’s Grove August newsletter for August is here.
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